Let’s talk about demand-side data. Like a faultless wi-fi connection, it’s a desirable yet elusive thing. Since the advent of the big data boom, analysts have been trying to determine the perfect proxy for consumer interest and in their ongoing quest they’ve deployed a range of strategies. From outdated methodologies like surveys and panels to imperfect and emerging technologies like point of sales data, many paths have been forged and myriad obstacles have popped up a long the way. For instance, consumer surveys often fall victim to small sample sizes and human error while point of sales data usually only allows clients access to their own data not their competitors data. Clearly, the right solution for understanding what people eat still looms large and that quandry recently got Food Genius thinking.

Could we possibly build a better proxy for consumer demand? To know what people eat is the number one request we field from clients so we went to work to try and come up with a better offering for the the foodservice industry, knowing all too well the pitfalls associated with the more tried and true methods. In fact, the first rule we set for ourselves was to make sure to explore new territory and not simply resort to what was already available to the market.To be sure, we can be a pit picky about our data so not just any data would do. We decided to look beyond survey and point of sales data in search of greener pastures which eventually we found in aggregrate restaurant sales data.

Though we can’t give away many details at the moment, we can say that our latest and greatest set of reports will include analytics derived from a new proxy for consumer demand. One created from a massive set of restaurant sales data. One that provides those in the foodservice industry with a realistic sense of not what people say they want to eat but what they actually eat. It’s accurate, large-scale data and it’s coming soon. Stay tuned and in the mean time - reach out to learn more about our upcoming product offerings.

]]>http://blog.getfoodgenius.com/a-better-proxy-for-consumer-demand-is-coming-soon/feed/0Dumpling Trends in the US – An American Take on an International Dishhttp://blog.getfoodgenius.com/dumpling-trends-in-the-us-an-american-take-on-an-international-dish/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dumpling-trends-in-the-us-an-american-take-on-an-international-dish
http://blog.getfoodgenius.com/dumpling-trends-in-the-us-an-american-take-on-an-international-dish/#commentsThu, 12 Feb 2015 22:56:00 +0000http://blog.getfoodgenius.com/?p=4530

Every culture has its dumpling. Chinese diners gobble up xiaolongbao, Italians dine on ravoli and in Slovakia, bryndzové halušky is a national dish. Pierogi are a favorite in Poland, and Germans pile their plates high with kartoffelknoedel. The lingonberry jam you find at Ikea is paired with pitepalt in Sweden. You can eat gyoza in Japan, samosa in India and bawan in Taiwan.

Food Genius data indicates that in the US, we can find variations on delicious stuffed dough balls on 24% of all menus nationwide. We also have some dumpling trends of our own: chicken and dumplings is a classic Southern comfort food, and crab rangoons are a favorite on Chinese takeout menus. According to Food Genius, dumpling trends in the US are on the rise: there’s been a 4% increase in menus featuring dumplings since January 2014.

Let’s use Food Genius to take a closer look at the breakdown of cuisines offering dumpling menu items in the US. 41% of restaurants with dumplings on their menus are Chinese, 17% Japanese, 9% American, 9% Thai and 6% Italian. Chinese cuisine, it almost goes without saying, is an overrepresented market; Korean, Vietnamese and Indian are all underrepresented. Restaurants of these three cuisines could pull in business by featuring mandu, bánh bao and samosa on their respective menus.

Food Genius data on pricing for dumpling trends indicates that the easiest place for Americans to fill up on dumplings is at Fast Casual Chinese joints, where menu items are typically priced between $7-12. 23% of all restaurants offering dumplings nationwide fall into this specific category. There’s a cheaper alternative, too — 15% of Fast Food Chinese joints (menu items priced under $8) also offer dumplings.

If you’re not feeling Chinese, check out Japanese or Thai Fast Casual places — according to Food Genius, 9% and 7% of menus with dumplings fall into these categories respectively. It’s worth noting that in each of the three aforementioned underrepresented markets — Korean, Vietnamese and Indian — less than 3% of restaurant menus feature dumpling dishes.

Americans love dumplings, and there’s a dumpling variation for even the pickiest palate. The combinations of meat, vegetables and spices in dumpling filling are virtually endless. If you want to learn more about how your restaurant could leverage Food Genius data on dumpling trends to successfully create and market a new dumpling dish, request a demo today.

]]>http://blog.getfoodgenius.com/dumpling-trends-in-the-us-an-american-take-on-an-international-dish/feed/0Kabob Trends in the US — The Rise of a Multi-Cultural American Classichttp://blog.getfoodgenius.com/kabob-trends-in-the-us-the-rise-of-a-multi-cultural-american-classic/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kabob-trends-in-the-us-the-rise-of-a-multi-cultural-american-classic
http://blog.getfoodgenius.com/kabob-trends-in-the-us-the-rise-of-a-multi-cultural-american-classic/#commentsMon, 26 Jan 2015 17:52:38 +0000http://blog.getfoodgenius.com/?p=4525

When we look at the culinary scene today, one trend stands clearly above the rest: the blurred lines of international cuisine. Americans eat authentic Japanese food and Latin American flavors penetrate traditional American cuisine. Soon the people will be clamoring for more shelf space in the grocery store’s international aisles. And while certain foods are inherently of a single cuisine, others aren’t. Enter the kabob. A staple of summertime grilling in America and the Mediterranean alike, the kabob is truly an international food.

Food Genius crunched the numbers on kabob trends and found that kabobs are featured on 10% of menus nationwide, up 11% in popularity from October 2013. Kabob trends have yet to penetrate the chain restaurant market; a whopping 99% of menus featuring kabobs are from independent restaurants. But the most interesting thing about kabob trends in a country as diverse as the US is the wide variety of cultural influences on the ingredients, flavors and preparation of kabobs. Let’s use Food Genius data to take a look at a few of the most popular cuisines featuring kabobs on their menus nationwide. Of all US restaurants with kabobs on the menu, 25% are Indian — and 82% of all Indian restaurants have at least one kabob dish. 98% of Indian kabob menu items include a protein and typically it’s red meat (lamb, specifically, is in 83% of all Indian meat kabobs). One of the big Indian kabob trends is incorporating spices: ginger is featured in 29% of kabob dishes and masala in 19%.

Food Genius also indicates that American restaurants account for 24% of all kabob menu items. 95% of American kabobs feature a protein but, unlike Indian kabobs, that protein is chicken 70% of the time. American kabob dishes are accompanied by a grain in 56% of instances, usually rice (43%) but sometimes bread (22%). Like many other American food trends, kabobs draw on a variety of cultural influences: for example, in the 29% of instances that American kabobs are served with a sauce, it varies from tzatziki to tomato to teriyaki. According to Food Genius, Mediterranean restaurants account for 12% of all kabob menu items. While vegetables play a big role in kabob trends in all cuisines, Mediterranean menus showcase them in 76% of all kabob dishes. Onions are the most popular vegetable and included 56% of the time, followed by tomatoes (45%), peppers (33%), lettuce (21%), garlic (18%) and mushrooms (9%).

With kabobs being an integral part of so many cuisines (and so many summer BBQs), there’s a clear opportunity for restaurants to get American diners stuck on delicious dishes-on-a-stick. If you want to learn more about how your restaurant could use data on kabob trends to successfully create and market a new kabob dish, request a demo from Food Genius today.

]]>http://blog.getfoodgenius.com/kabob-trends-in-the-us-the-rise-of-a-multi-cultural-american-classic/feed/0What Was Expected in 2014, What Actually Happened, and What’s To Come in 2015http://blog.getfoodgenius.com/what-was-expected-in-2014-what-actually-happened-and-whats-to-come-in-2015/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-was-expected-in-2014-what-actually-happened-and-whats-to-come-in-2015
http://blog.getfoodgenius.com/what-was-expected-in-2014-what-actually-happened-and-whats-to-come-in-2015/#commentsWed, 21 Jan 2015 22:35:32 +0000http://blog.getfoodgenius.com/?p=4505

Every year at this time, pundits offer their best guess at what’s in store for the restaurant industry in the coming 12 months. As usual, some of the predictions put forth last year came true— gluten-free went mainstream, mash-up foods took hold in QSRs—while others failed to launch. But those reports, while coming from informed minds, still are speculative. This, though, isn’t your run-of-the-mill trend report. It dispenses with the guesswork by analyzing what actually happened in restaurants and how that will inform menus in 2015. We examined more than 600,000 restaurant menu items to see what terms appeared the most and what we found were three major themes and two minor ones that are moving the needle enough to impact restaurateurs across the country, at independents and chains alike. While some of the trends, such as spicy and healthy, have been around for a stint, they’re maturing on the national level and will spend the next few years continuing to soar. The trends also evolve differently region by region; looking at their distribution helps operators best decide how to exploit the trends in their area. Here, we present the surefire trends that have the momentum and staying power to affect your business in 2015.

Methodology

We put our data scientists to work. They sifted through our entire taxonomy of terms and used the following criteria and categories to determine which menu terms will inform the overall trends and which were too underdeveloped to make the cut:

Niche trends – These are items that appear on less than 5 percent of menus, and their mentions have grown by 15 percent or more in the past year.

Accepted trends – These items appear on 5 to 23 percent of menus, and their mentions have grown by at least 15 percent over the past year.

Widespread trends - Includes items that appear on more than 23 percent of menus, and their mentions have grown by at least five percent over the past year.

Out of all the menu items and terms analyzed, there were quite a few that had grown over the year, but they weren’t considered for the purposes of this list until we saw a discernible pattern or theme emerge. These larger groupings, all of which experienced notable annual growth, led to the list of five trends poised to grow in 2015.

Italian

Despite lots of talk about Asian flavors and other ethnic cuisines, they are still quite niche, only showing up on a small number of menus. It was elements of Italian food that ended up growing the most on menus in 2014. Authentic pasta varieties such as tagliatelle, orecchiette and capellini went from appearing on less than 500 menus to nearly 2,000 menus, and dishes such as gnocchi, manicotti and tortellini increased by 3 percent in both upscale and quick-service chain restaurants, especially those serving American cuisine.

There’s no obvious explanation for the surge of the Italian theme. Most industry predictions have been geared towards health, which is opposite of Italian cuisine’s core components that sway towards rich, carb-heavy dishes with fattier ingredients, such as bacon-laced carbonara. It may have been the subzero winter that lingered long into spring that had many consumers turning to warm, hearty meals. Or the Italian boom could be riding on the coattails of the authentic-ingredient trend (see below) fueled by hundreds of different varieties of pasta, cheeses and proteins.

With consumers’ rising familiarity of Italian ingredients, it is likely the Italian theme will evolve and reveal itself in more ways across foodservice and across the country. And that is where operators can capitalize.

Spicy

The continued rise of spicy flavors and ingredients is hardly a surprise. It was a big trend in 2013, and with time, it’s only gotten bigger. But whereas before, spicy was growing in many niche places, the term “spicy” now appears on more than 60 percent of menus. And while there aren’t likely to be rapid changes in 2015, watch for the spicy trend to mature and evolve. Driven by the adventurous palates of millennials and an increasingly diverse population, spicy will grow across various terms, segments and cuisines in 2015. And because demand for spicy foods has yet to waver, expect to see fiery flavors adopted by more and more restaurants.

What may be surprising is that the spicy trend isn’t all about Sriracha. Despite having experienced tremendous growth over the past year, Sriracha still appears on less than five percent of menus, compared to other spicy ingredients, such as hot sauce, chili peppers and jalapeños, which also have seen significant growth and now appear on more than 25 percent of menus. Right now, Sriracha remains a small but important component of the spicy trend— a buzzed-about term that consumers are somewhat familiar with. For operators looking to add a spicy dish to the menu, a Sriracha-flavored dish might fit, because it’s well exposed.

Spicy foods, flavors and ingredients from various ethnic cuisines also will become staples on menus of chains and independents alike. A less homogeneous, more hyperconnected world is driving increased awareness of such cuisines, nearly all of which have their own set of spicy elements. This spells widespread growth of spicy overall (think jalapeños and red pepper flakes) as well as limited growth for cuisine-specific terms such as “pickled” or “fermented.”

Healthy

It’s been building for years, but the better-for-you movement finally gained enough steam last year to move past side dishes and take over the center of the plate. While kale, quinoa and chickpeas made waves in entrees, the trend has matured beyond specific ingredient mentions. Last year, what grew most were explicit menu claims associated with health. In the past, the term “healthy” had momentum; now, more nuanced health-halo terms, such as vegan and gluten-free, are rising. For the first time, “vegan” appears on 5 percent of menus, and one in 10 chain restaurants menus a gluten-free item. These two areas—gluten-free and vegetarian—will continue their march toward widespread menu adoption in 2015, as more established quick-service and fast-casual operators wake up to a competitive landscape.

As health remains top of mind, we’re likely to continue to see foodservice picking up on trends that already are big in the grocery aisle, as happened with gluten-free. After all, while restaurants and supermarkets split the dollars, most of consumers’ healthy meals still come from inside the store, where they have time to read labels. That said, it’s unclear what the next iteration of gluten-free will be, but transparency is one theme to watch, as it’s a proxy for consumers wanting to know what’s in their food.

Authentic Ingredients

While Italian ingredients, by far, experienced the most growth, they were part of a general tilt towards restaurants of all cuisine types making more mention of the authentic ingredients they use. For instance, galangal, a gingerlike root that is a staple in many Thai dishes and Indonesian curries, now appears on more than 1,000 menus. While it was likely always part of the recipe for curry dishes, only now is it being called out in menu descriptions. The same is happening on a larger scale with ingredients such as Oaxaca and Cotija cheeses, which have been used in Mexican restaurants forever, but now are mentioned on 4 percent of Latin American menus.

The growth in authentic ingredients is a direct result of consumer demographics. The American population is more diverse than ever, and consumers, especially millennials, crave new foods as a connection to different cultures. Menu mentions of specific ingredients serve as cues to the authenticity and heritage of a dish.

This trend will expand beyond ethnic menus as mainstream operators meet the demand for new flavors. Traditional Asian dishes, such as ramen and pho, might soon pop up at American or fast-casual spots. And as consumers become more informed and culturally aware, operators will need to pay greater attention to the details of their ethnic dishes. An American restaurant selling a Greek salad in the future, for instance, might exclude iceberg lettuce and vinegar, two ingredients not used in the traditional recipe.

Elevated Menu Descriptions

Our analysis of more than 600,000 menu items revealed a significant increase in elegant and pleasant-sounding sensory terms. Words such as “quality” enjoyed growth in almost every type of restaurant from upscale Mediterranean independents to inexpensive, all-American QSRs. Other terms, such as “artisan,” grew by large margins in chains only, begging the question: Is “artisan” fast-casual’s new “premium”?

What’s most notable is that almost all of the sensory terms that grew have broad applicability. For example, “aromatic,” which went from being a niche term to an accepted term over the past year, can describe almost any food that gives off a scent. The same is true for trending term “subtle,” which describes anything with even a hint of flavor.

Elevated menu descriptions are a by-product of the growing sophistication of the food industry in recent years. The convenience of easy-to-menu items has given way to conscientious preparations and higher-quality ingredients. While consumers still may crave convenience, it’s no longer at the sacrifice of good ingredients. It’s these terms that help operators create a perception of value, assuaging diners concerned with the quality of their food. Descriptors like “subtle,” “artisanal” and “hand-cut” will continue to grow in 2015. As more operators realize the perceived value such terms instill in customers’ minds, expect more and more menus describing sandwiches as artisanal—and net an additional 20 cents in doing so.

So there you have our take on what happened in 2014 and how it’ll effect 2015. As much as pundits would like to wish it so, trends are not isolated incidents. They are not replaced each year by a new set. Rather, they build off each other, affect one another, and inform the next set of trends that come along, however many years later. If you want to learn more about how you can effectively fold trends into your business for 2015, get in touch with Food Genius today.

Every day, millions of digital footprints are left all over the internet. Behavior is logged, categorized, interpreted and eventually sold to the top bidder. That data is then used to inform all sorts of decisions. In many cases, data can solve a marketing query. Knowing which websites your key consumers frequent allows a business to be smarter about how and where it spends its precious marketing dollars. Other times, data is used to inform product development. Surely, Dr. Dre’s latest iteration of the Beats headphones will include a few consumer data-derived upgrades. And while lots of data is valuable, some of it isn’t – especially within the foodservice industry.

Nice to Know Data vs. Gotta Have It DataIt’s true, not all data is actionable. For instance, it’s fascinating to know that the annual national consumption of mozzarella cheese correlates positively with the amount of civil engineering doctorates granted each year. Meaning, in years where lots of civil engineering doctorates are granted, lots of mozzarella cheese is eaten as well.

A strange correlation to be sure, but an insightful one? No. After all, this data reflects correlation, not causation. So if a sales associate at Sargento is frantically checking the graduation rates of civil engineering PhD candidates at the nation’s top universities in an attempt to predict how much mozzarella he might be able to sell that year, he is over-thinking it. He’d be better off investing that energy into a different data stream. One that shows where mozzarella is frequently menued perhaps. Data of this sort would enable him to map his sales strategy to territories where the demand for mozzarella is higher. The data below clearly shows that a Sargento salesman would be better off prioritizing the Midwest and focusing less of his efforts on the Southeast, maximizing his opportunity for sales and minimizing wasteful effort in doing so.

Good Looking DataJust as some types of data are better than others, so it is with methods for displaying data. In the foodservice industry, numbers matter. So does competitive intelligence. Most operators consider what their competitors are selling and at what price to be invaluable information. And it is. But if that information isn’t displayed in an easy-to-interpret fashion, it loses it’s value. Bulky zip files of .csvs are the ways of the of the past. Interactive visualizations are the way of the future.

When deployed purposefully and displayed cleanly, data allows those in foodservice to make informed decisions. Bad data can cause confusion and distract from the problem at hand, but good data can illuminate the best way forward. When considering data providers or services, make sure to ask yourself what information matters most to you. Break down your businesses needs and use data to inform and create action around those where you have the least information and the stakes are highest. In foodservice, data is often used to solve needs involving competitive intelligence. Consumer preferences can be tracked, menus can be categorized, and all of this information can be used to inform operators or manufacturers on how to create a competitive edge.